A few days ago, I mused aloud, both here and on Twitter, “Why do interview subjects say ‘that’s a great question’? I’ve never said that, and never understood it.”
I seems this was an unwitting lie; witness this interview I did just over a month ago with Global News in Halifax about the new edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac:
To quote from the offending clip:
Interviewer: And you said as well that you’re from PEI, so you’re quite familiar with weather patterns and the way things kind of pan out here in Atlantic Canada with lots of snowfall. I know precipitation-wise, averagely, how much do we typically see here for snowfall?
Me: That’s a good question. I would say “a lot,” which reflects how much I know about the detail of the weather.
That’s a pretty good illustration of what Piya Chattopadhya described as “their brain is telling them to buy time cuz they don’t know what to say.”
I truly had no idea how much snow Prince Edward Island receives in the winter, and I truly did need that few seconds to come up with the best answer I could, which was “a lot.”
Et tu, self?
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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Comments
and we get a lot of snow in
and we get a lot of snow in the wintertime.
There's a highly entertaining
There's a highly entertaining episode of Freakonomics all about this: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/thats-a-great-question-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
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